I’m loosing track of observation missions so I turned to UMSF again The last few years many space agencies planned space-based telescopes such as CNES with COROT (2006), NASA with WISE (2009) and James Webb Telescope (2013), ESA with Herschel-FIRST (2008) and DARWIN-formation (2020). Can anyone point out a table which specifies what part of the electromagnetic spectrum each of these are using? And which are used for finding extra-solar planets? Danke!

Well, there’re basically 6 methods to detect planets around other stars (extrasolar planets): Direct imaging (using coronagraph to minimize the light of star), Astrometry (positional astronomy), Radial Velocity method (Doppler-effect), Transit photometry (planet transits its star), Microlensing (gravitational bending of light) and the Timing method which in fact lead to the first detection of a planet outside our solar system by timing the signal difference between the extrasolar planet and its star orbiting a common point of gravity.Indeed, there’re a lot of space-based telescopic observation missions, each using a specific part of the electro-magnetic spectrum ( Gamma-rays , X-rays, Visible , InfraRed , Radio ). Putting together an overview list might be a good idea for some kind of ‘reference’ section here on UMSF... I found the following on wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_t...ving_technology

ESA and Astrium are jointly inviting the media to a press conference in Friedrichshafen, Germany, on 19 September 2007, to hear about Herschel far-infrared space observatory, a revolutionary spacecraft, its scientific objectives, and to view the very heart of its hardware. Journalists are allowed to make photos in the clean room!

If I could afford to take the time off work - I'd go - 400D and tripod in tow....but sadly, the grim reality of 'normal' life takes priority. I've already done Rosetta and Europlanet on my 'holiday' time.

ESA and Astrium are jointly inviting the media to a press conference in Friedrichshafen, Germany, on 19 September 2007, to hear about Herschel far-infrared space observatory, a revolutionary spacecraft, its scientific objectives, and to view the very heart of its hardware. Journalists are allowed to make photos in the clean room!

ESA release for the event, with lots of images, including a great animation of Herschel's build-up.But this...man...this is a work of Art!...

I'm not sure what's going to happen with TPF, last I read on it said it was "deferred indefinitely" which usually means canceled. However NASA is becoming a politically active topic again as the US Senate voted to include an additional billion for the 2008 budget.

Graphic contains most of the space observatories (unmanned) observing electromagnetic radiation from deep space, which were observing for more than one month and which provide us with useful data. Horizontal scale is in years and main (left) vertical logarithmic scale represents wavelength of electromagnetic radiation in meters. First half of the right logarithmic scale depicts frequency of electromagnetic radiation and second half depicts energy of photon corresponding to wavelength of electromagnetic radiation.Each observatory is represent by the rectangle, where width depicts lifetime, height depicts spectral coverage and color depicts state of origin (ESRO/ESA missions are labeled as "Europe"). Some observatories with significantly different areas of spectral coverage are represent with more than one rectangle. These rectangles are then connected by dotted lines.

What John said - and it helps with realizing how much of the sky has (not) been under observation in various ways over time. This will send me scurrying back to see whether some of the early Cosmos and USNO piggyback experiments operated for more than a month (or was that already factored in to the selection?)

If it's OK with machi, this graphic might be making an appearance in my next "observation and data analysis" class, being much easer to digest than a more-than-page-long table...

"This will send me scurrying back to see whether some of the early Cosmos and USNO piggyback experiments operated for more than a month (or was that already factored in to the selection?)"

You can compare graphic with this HEASARC list of missions. Only few missions are excluded, mostly missions with lower importance for (extrasolar) astronomy, manned missions (Salyut, Shuttle, Kvant), military missions with lower importance for astronomy (DMSP) and interplanetary missions. I suppose, that this isn't last version of this graphic, so I can add some other missions in future.

"If it's OK with machi, this graphic might be making an appearance in my next "observation and data analysis" class, being much easer to digest than a more-than-page-long table."

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